Okay, so yesterday I was playing Skyrim, and I had just finished Mehrunes Razor quest, so I was outside his shrine. After that, I went to Whiterun to change outfit (from heavy armour to light) and bought a load of empty grand soul gems. All of that took about 15 minutes, which isn't bad.

After that, I went to several giant camps to kill mammoths for the grand souls. In total, about 90 minutes was spent doing this.

Then, I did a few side quests. Another hour.

Finally, I decide to go to Skuldofn. Fighting my way up to Sovngarde took about 35-40 minutes. I finally get to Sovngarde and meet that big hairy bastard who challenges you. He killed me.

Where do I reappear at? MEHRUNES DAGON'S [censored] SHRINE!!!!!

That's right, over THREE HOURS of playtime GONE!! And every ten minutes or so, my game would say in the corner (Please wait... Autosaving...) Why the actual [censored] does this happen to me?

I'm not kidding, that actually completely killed my desire to go on Skyrim. I look at it now, and just don't want to touch it.

auto-save is your friend.

No it isn't, that bastard abandoned me. Lied to and abandoned, Cider!, lied to and abandoned!

Quicksave. Use quicksave often. Also make manual save regulary, I usually try do one roughly in every hour.

I don't know on what platform you are playing but on pc there is no "automatic" save unless you go through a loading screen. You have to press the quicksave key, or make a save with a number, to actually save your game.

If you're on a console version you don't technically have a "quicksave" - however there IS a form of it...

There's an autosave function you can turn on that activates every 15+ minutes (toggolable) - IF YOU ENTER THE ITEM/MAGIC/SKILL/MAP menu.

I had something similar to that happen to me OP... autosave by itself only happens upon entering loadscreens. If you're not on a PC, learn to use the auot-save via the inventory menu. When I know I've gone for a long stretch, i'll simply hit my "O" button to "quicksave" and back out again, JUST to be safe. Learned the benefit of that the HARD way.

sorry to laugh at your misfortune but it's funny as ol'hell

Seriously though.....

Auto-save is NOT your best friend, it will cause situations like yours and will even cause bigger problems ( sometimes ). The manual save is your best friend. I try to remember to make a " hard " save every 30 minutes to 1 hour and have at least 5 per character, this way if something does come up I can go back without much loss of what I've completed.

I'm a save-nazi.

But only because I think of times like these.

Same here, had way too many situations where I dropped 10-15 levels because of my forgetting to save and what not. So I as well became a "save-nazi"

I was killed by Alduin once. I had it autosave as much as possible, but The save loaded was in dragonsreach just before going to Skuldafn.

I've played enough Bethesda games to learn you can't trust them enough to not crash/bug/break/explode, you need to save a lot. I have the autosave on menu thing set to 5 minutes, I abuse the hell out of quicksaves when I can and hard save it often.

Normal, the game loads the last quicksave you made, not the last autosave.

Same here. I think it may be some sort of OCD because I have to save the same ways in exactly the same place in my houses and in the wilds every single time.

I have to save with my character in third-person facing the screen /: And usually zoomed up close,

Im an xbox user. No quick saves. It always loads autosaves except for that time.

Lol, I don't need to create the same thing every time but I do like to make nice little " screen shots " for my save files. I'll pose for a nice self portrait or scenic shots.

Us Xbox users do have a " quick save " as long as you have a Kinect. But other then that it's the auto-saves that get loaded, if you fast travel and then die it will load the auto-save from just before you fast traveled.

I dont have Kinect.
The character the autosave failed on, didnt ever fast travel.

Unless you have autosave turned off, it should save before every Fast-travel and every 15 minutes when entering a menu.

You should have a more recent autosave, just try and load it.

I thought I was the only person who did that! Yes, I make multiple saves with my character facing the screen close up. Save often, so you won't lose all those precious hours.

I feel bad for your loss, OP. I can understand how infuriating it must be.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/005/393/i-know-that-feel.jpg

It works the same way with auto-save through a loading screen in general, if you die it will load from just before the auto-save was done. So if you pass though a door that changes load cells then die, you will load in just in front of the door before you went through. And as I said, as log as you have a Kinect you have quick save like the Pcer's. I myself have a kinect but I don't really use it, it's more for my kids ( I'm not a big kinect fan )

I know how autosaves work. I was killed by Alduin but the save loaded in dragonsreach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A